Flexible Financial Solutions

1.       Too little too late – The government has deliberately set up our superannuation system to favour those who start early and stay on track. Those who leave it to the last minute often do so at their own peril. Start as soon as possible and map out your road to financial freedom. This does 2 things, sets up a discipline of savings and takes advantage of Compound interest. This arises when interest is added to the principal, so that, from that moment on, the interest that has been added also earns interest.

2.       Pay unnecessary taxes – There are many simple, legal ways to make sure you are not paying more tax than you need. Check with your Financial Planner or Accountant if you are making the most of the tax incentives offered by the government. Most people think that deductions are the only thing that the Australian Tax Office (ATO) offers, some of the better benefits to receive are in the way of rebates and Tax offsets.

3.       Fall for investment fads – This probably possess the greatest single danger to your prosperity. Tech stocks in the late 1990s and speculative miners in the late 2000s were very tempting when they were rising fast. Your best weapon against this temptation is to develop a disciplined investment plan and stick with it. One of our credos’ is “Do not invest in anything you do not understand”

4.       It won’t happen to me – Wealth management is just as much about protecting your assets as it is about building wealth. Make sure you have a backup plan to pay off your house and look after your family if you were to die or be permanently unable to work. Your ability to earn money is actually your most valuable asset, so it's vital to protect that asset. Someone on an income of $50,000 would be worth $1,653,298 over 20 years taking into consideration inflation. When you look at the likelihood of death or disability stopping you earning, we are happy to protect our house, car and even pets but fail to look at ourselves. 

5.       Fail to plan - As the old adage goes, “if you fail to plan, you plan to fail”. If you can articulate your goals and visualise what achieving those goals looks like, you are well on your way to achieving them. Write down your three most important goals and keep them in a safe and accessible place to review. If you are a person who says they do this once a year (say the 1st or 2nd of January EVERY year) but it doesn’t work. What you sometimes need, is the next step, which is having someone keeping you accountable. Make sure your plan has the key ingredients, being specific, measurable, achievable, realistic and timely.

John Elders

*image by Cappellmeister via Flickr

If you are like me you probably want to “get ahead’. You have dreams about putting a little bit aside and building a nest egg. Even a modest amount to let you do the things you really want to. But it can be hard. Hard to start and then hard to keep that little extra in the bank. But there is a way that provides secure long term savings that grow quicker due to significant taxation advantages. Welcome to the world of Salary Sacrifice!

You have probably heard friends or colleagues talk about sacrificing their salary and wondered why someone would do that. The reasons are simple, they don’t give their salary away, they just direct a part of it to Superannuation or some other allowed program and in return get a tax advantage. So lets have a look at how and why it works for so many Australians.

Salary Sacrifice involves an employee agreeing to reduce part of his or her gross income (income before tax is taken out), in return for which the employer makes a contribution to a superannuation fund on the employee's behalf equal to the sacrificed amount. So in reality, you still get all of your salary.

Salary Sacrifice will increase your Superannuation balance now and that means the compounding growth effect over the years can give you a real advantage in your final balance. And that is good news for your lifestyle and retirement options.

But wait ... there is more! The government wants you to build your savings and they have allowed the strategy to provide the added benefit of tax savings which means even more money for you. This works by only taxing salary sacrificed contributions at the rate of 15 per cent rather than your marginal tax rate which can be up to 45% plus the Medicare levy (1%) and the flood levy (up to 1%).

This all adds up to a substantial boost in savings that will lead to better lifestyle options in retirement. It may not seem important now but a savings strategy can make the world of difference to the 20, 30 or even 40 years you may live in retirement without a salary coming in.

What you may need to consider

Salary sacrificing into super may not suit everyone. You should consider possible impacts as a result of reducing your “salary”. Make sure you have sufficient cash flows to meet essential expenses. You should also talk to your employer to find out if salary sacrificing will affect any other employment benefits you receive, such as compulsory Superannuation Guarantee contributions and leave loading. Most employers offer salary sacrificing without reducing these benefits. Also, if your marginal tax rate is low, salary sacrificing may offer little advantage

Is there anything else I should know?

• You will need to speak to your employer to make this arrangement.
• A salary sacrificing arrangement can only be made prospectively (based on future remuneration). To set up an arrangement for 2012/2013, speak to your employer now.
• If you are under age 50, the maximum concessional contribution to Superannuation is capped at $25,000 per annum, if you are over age 50, the maximum concessional contribution is capped at $50,000 per annum (this is likely to reduce to $25,000 from 1 July, 2012).
• Concessional caps include Superannuation Guarantee (generally 9% of your gross income) and Salary Sacrifice contributions. It is important not to exceed these caps as the penalties are quite steep.
• Super is for retirement purposes and therefore you generally cannot get access to your salary sacrificed contributions until you retire after reaching age 55, and that is transitioning to 60.

The table below outlines the net tax benefit for a person salary sacrificing $1 into superannuation at various income levels.

While this table shows the return or added savings due to the tax advantage on $1 of salary sacrificed between the various income levels, it might be easier to view it as a percentage return resulting from a salary sacrifice.

For example, someone on a salary between $80,001 and $100,000 that enters into a Salary Sacrifice arrangement will receive an immediate uplift on their saved amount 25%. Now that is pretty hard to beat!

Andrew George

It’s that time of the year again! School has started and that means new shoes, books, uniforms, school runs and all the chaos of trying to get your children back into the school routine again. Before you can even start thinking about the madness a new school year can bring to your household, there is one issue you must settle first…what school and how much will it cost!

We want our children to have the very best and education is at the top of the list, but how much does it cost to make sure your child is receiving the best education to set them up for a successful future? Secondary school fees at a good private school can cost anywhere between $16,000 and $29,000 per year. A staggering amount when you take into account all the other costs raising a child comes with.

Mark McCrindle an Australian social researcher estimates that when you add the cost of educating your child, sports and recreational classes, together with the fact that the average child now stays at home until age 24, the real cost incurred by Australian parents in raising each child was $1,028,093 with most of this amount going towards schooling costs.

School fees have increased by a massive 50% since 2005. One in three Australian children are now attending private schools as a matter of choice. Even parents sending their children to public schools face significant schooling costs for expensive books and learning materials.

The children’s education along with paying off the mortgage is high on the list of priorities for most Australian families, but now, more than ever, few Australian families are adequately prepared with record household debt and unstable economic conditions.

How do we manage this cost and how do we make sure that we can pay our children’s school fees without having to cut back significantly on other areas? Most parents will put aside funds in their bank accounts intended to pay for all the expenses incurred at the beginning of the school year. However, what most parents forget is that the school year starts shortly after the holiday season, the time of the year when most families have already maxed out their credit cards and taken a deep dip into this school fees account.

A more efficient approach to managing this cost could be starting a specific account for your child’s education, commonly known as an “Insurance Bond”. An Insurance Bond is set-up in your child’s name, can help you with a simple and easy way for you to invest funds to help pay for your child’s future. These types of bonds attract significant tax concessions, and are capital gains-free if they are held for longer than 10 years.

An Insurance Bond gives you the option of automatically transferring the ownership of the bond to your child on reaching the nominated age which you choose (between 10 and 25) providing a simple, tax-effective solution of saving for your child's educational future.

Control your future by planning for it. We can help you Identifying areas in which to can save money and direct these saving towards making sure your child has the very best education. With the cost of living soaring higher than ever, so are the costs of education and raising our children. We can help make sure you are well equipped to fund your child’s education and get them started on the road to wherever they might go.

Husna Jamal

*image by RaeAllen via Flickr 

We asked our Advisors here at Sage which questions they were most asked during 2011.  We hope you find the answers helpful and if you’ve got any specific financial planning questions you’d like answered, please contact us or you can pop them in the comments!

 

Question: Why does the share market always seem to go down?

Answer: A quick look at the all Ordinaries Index shows that since the market peak in November 2007 at about 6800, its current value of roughly 4150 (at the time of writing) is a drop of about 39% over the 4 year period. This stat alone seems to sum up what people already know, that is, the share market has been a tough ride over the last 4 years. Having said that if we take a longer term view of say 20 years the ASX All Ordinaries on average has returned 9.0% annually, compared to cash at 5.8%. Even a 10 year time frame has shares outperforming cash by 1.1% over that period. So whilst on recent form it does seem like the share market is a basket case, long-term averages suggest this is the place to be if you want higher returns.

Question:  When can I access my super?

Answer:  The easy answer is 65, then it gets more complicated depending on the age you decide to retire, if you were born before the 1st of July 1960, you could retire at age 55 and access your super with no restriction. Each person could have different accessibility options available to them depending on age.

Question: What are advantages of Superannuation?

Answer:  Superannuation is concessionally taxed of generally up to 15%. Your resources can be pooled with other investors, allowing you to make investments impossible for an individual investor.  It helps you to easily diversify your investments. Having your savings locked for a predefined period may be an attractive benefit for those people who may be tempted to "dip" into their longer term money for retirement.

Question:  Do people actually follow a budget?

Answer:  Some people do, of these mostly in a general manner. Actually having a set of firm numbers (being your anticipated expenses) and comparing your expenses to this is quite rare. Most people give up early in the piece as they can’t see the benefit. We can incorporate this type of cashflow monitoring for our clients to ensure maximum usage of income.

Question:  Do I have enough super?

Answer:  The immediate answer is “I don’t know”. To provide our eventual and more appropriate answer takes a significant amount of work and there is some crucial information that we need to know. Two of the most important bits of information are when you want to retire and how much income you want each year in retirement. The second question brings about some interesting answers such as “Oh I don’t need that much. I’d probably live on about $40k a year.” or “Oh I don’t need that much. I probably be happy with $100,000 a year”. So you can see the answer to this question is never straight forward and differs greatly from person to person.

Question:  Have I got the best super fund?

Answer:  Again there is no straight forward answer.  When most clients ask this question I ask them in return “ What do you think makes a good super fund?”.  Clients who haven’t seen a planner before (and plenty that have) will generally say “The one that makes the most money”. However, financial planning 101 teaches us that past performance is not an indicator of future performance so the fund that did the best over the last few years may not perform anywhere near as well over the next few years. Also, there are a number of other factors to consider such as ..... will the fund allow you to nominate who receives the monies if the client dies, does the fund have appropriate insurance options, what type of investments would the client like (such as term deposits or shares), what are the fees and many more issues.

Importantly there are thousands of super funds available and a Financial Planner cannot know the ins and outs of all of them. Financial Planners are required to be very familiar with a good cross section of funds that can meet a wide variety of different types of clients so that we can recommend a good fund that we have investigated and know it meets your requirements.

Question:  Aren’t those insurance premiums a little expensive?

Answer:  Importantly, with any cost a person needs to believe that the cost outlay provides sufficient benefit or they don’t make a purchase or sign a contract. With personal insurance the benefit is that you are protecting your families standard of living in the future or protecting their wealth should something happen to the client. What a person needs to consider is the financial ramifications of not having insurance if they are to be unable to work, become sick or injured or even die. If a client can gain an understanding of these significant setbacks they can often understand that the downside of paying these premiums now is a lot more palatable than the alternative if they suffer an insurable event and they aren’t insured.

In addition, premiums are very much dependant on the insurers understanding of the risk a client provides to them. So obviously a 60 year old male who has high cholesterol and high blood pressure will pay a lot more for the same level of cover as a fit and healthy 40 year old. So high premiums are generally reflective of a high risk that a client will be eligible to claim. However, if a client is a high risk to claim, this may increase the importance of having insurance in the first place.

Question: What are the benefits of insuring through super?

Answer:  There are many benefits of insuring through your superannuation rather than outside of super. One of the main benefits is that premiums for personal insurance cover via a non-super policy are generally paid with after-tax dollars. On the other hand, premiums paid through a super fund can effectively be funded from concessionally taxed super contributions. In addition, tax concessions can apply to super benefits paid as a result of death, terminal illness or total and permanent disability. As a result, insuring via super can often be more tax-effective compared to insuring outside super. 

Question:  Do many people have any Lost super?

Answer:  Yes! Australia has approximately $12.9 billion dollars worth of unclaimed super, the question is how much of this is yours? $4000? $5000? Maybe even $10,000+  dollars due to inflation?
Many of our clients have held multiple jobs over their working lives and have had different super funds for each one. Super gets lost when an employee moves jobs or superannuation funds without notifying their existing fund of the change. This works no different to having $5000 in a bank account and just throwing away all record of having it and not bothering to chase it up. Silly isn’t it!
The sooner you find your super the sooner you can get it to work for you, your unclaimed super could be subject to high admin fees and commissions while making very small returns, depleting your funds.

The good news is we can help you locate your lost superannuation monies and make sure that these funds work hard for your retirement.

Question:  What is the cost of delay?

Answer:  Waiting to begin your savings plan can have a huge impact on your results. A delay of even a few years could cost you thousands of dollars. In some recent calculations a client considered investing $5k per year for a 10 year term but wanted to start the investment in 3 years time. This time delay, based on an assumed 6% growth, would cost the client $25,371!

*image by o5com via Flickr

 

I thought I would share with you some interesting scenarios that I have come across recently for this blog. The case studies are different scenarios that I have encountered recently and show some of the value of dealing with an Planner that you may not have anticipated. All of the names used have been changed for client confidentiality purposes.

 

Sandra, a young mother of 2, saw a Planner a few of years ago and decided not to take out any of the insurance recommended to her. She came to see me with her husband, and in our conversation it turns out that she had recently been diagnosed with a health condition. At the moment her condition is not too serious, but it could lead to other more serious health concerns. Naturally, insurance becomes a higher priority when a Doctor tells you that you have a health issue and you have a young family to look after.

We agreed that I would speak to some insurance companies to get an idea of whether they would offer her insurance at all given her health conditions.  I spoke to about 10 different companies, and the majority of them said they would not offer insurance because of her current health. A couple of the insurers said they would offer some insurance, but at a heavily inflated price. Fortunately for Sandra and her family, she already had some insurance inside her super fund. I had a look at the terms of the insurance and it turns out that her policy included a feature called “Guaranteed Future Insurability (GFI).” This feature allows you to automatically increase your level of cover when you experience certain life events, including having a child and a child starting school. The insurance company guarantees to increase your cover (if you apply for the increase) regardless of your health. This was a great benefit for this client who has two 2 children who have not yet started school, and is also pregnant with her 3rd. Sandra should be able to use this GFI feature 4 or 5 times over the next few years, so that by the time, her yet unborn child starts school she will have increased her insurance by about 2.5 times the current level without having to provide any health evidence. In addition, it will cost the same as it would for a person who is 100% fit and healthy. Of course, Sandra would have had no idea that this option was available to her if she hadn’t seen an Financial Planner.

My second case study relates to someone I’ll refer to as Guy. Guy has been a client for a number of years and he came to see me for a review of his financial affairs. My advice was for Guy to increase his level of trauma insurance. As part of the application process, the insurance company wanted some medical information from his doctors and they also wanted Guy to have a blood test. The blood test showed up some urine in his blood. Guy had a second test done with his Doctor who then sent him to a Specialist. The Specialist informed Guy that he had a tumour in his kidney. The result was that he had his whole kidney removed in the next few days. He was quite lucky that he caught it before it had time to spread.

Unfortunately, the new level of insurance was not put in place because of Guy’s health, but the insurance company paid out on the cover that was already in place. More importantly, who knows what would have happened to Guy had he not applied for insurance. Finding that tumour was certainly an unexpected benefit he got from coming in to review his financial situation with a Planner.

I’ll call my third client case study client Francisco. When I met with Francisco for the first time he informed me that he had been diagnosed with cancer but that he had beaten it. Unfortunately he did not have any trauma insurance, but he did have an income protection policy that a previous Advisor had recommended he put in place. However, Francisco did not contact us when he had cancer because he missed very little work and therefore thought he could not make a claim on his insurance policy. I looked into it and found that the policy had a feature that paid out 6 times the client's monthly insured amount on diagnosis of a number of conditions regardless of whether the client stops work or not, and cancer was an included condition. As such we made a claim on his income protection policy and Francisco got paid out in excess of $33,000. That was certainly a nice bonus!

Sometimes the benefits aren’t all financial though. These three cases are all based around health and insurance but sometimes it is also lifestyle changes and enjoyment. Whatever it is, I get a real kick out of helping my clients to a better life.

Tom O’Shea

*image by 5tvHD1 via Flickr

The first step on the path to financial success is keeping track of your cash flow. It can seem like a daunting task, however it is not as hard or as complex as you may think. The groundwork of this is to have an understanding of how much you are spending month to month. Knowing if you are “living within your means” gives you the comfort to make choices and decisions. and that is important in the current economic climate.

Now before you say that you have tried to do budgets before but it was too hard, or "it didn’t work for me", I want to give you an easy way to be successful this time. With this simple yet effective method you can see if you are living within your means and start to take control of your personal finances.

Firstly, go around your home or office and collect all of current financial statements from the last 6 months. On a piece of paper split the detailed items into two groups, one group being “income” and the other being “expenditure”.  The best way to differentiate the two groups is to put anything that goes “into your pocket” such as your salary into the income group. Anything that goes “out” of your pocket such as bills for food, mortgage, rent or entertainment goes into the expenditure group.

Once you have organised the two groups, you can add up the totals on each side.  If your income is greater than your expenditure, you are in a great position, however if your outgoings exceed your income it’s time for action and don’t get despondent about your past habits. Did you know that 1 out of every 2 adults are currently living outside of their means? Now you have the ammunition to do something about it!

Look over your expenditure list and try to identify areas and ways to reduce unnecessary spending. Maybe going out to dinner once a month rather than weekly, or downgrading your pay TV subscription could be an option. Anything that brings your outgoings closer to what’s coming in is a good way to get on track to “living within your means”. It is important to still have a treat sometimes – but only when you can afford it!

Now you have taken the first step to managing your cash flow and finances, so don’t put that work to waste. Use what we have done today as a guide as to what your cash flow will be like for the coming 6 months. This will give you a chance to think about changes to your outgoings or incomings that you are aware of such as holidays, tax refunds and any other financial event that didn’t occur in the previous 6 months. Factor these in to make a prediction about your finances in 6 months time.

The next month or two are traditionally hard times for budgets, with Christmas and holidays putting plenty of pressure on the outgoings, while income remains unchanged or even reduced for some. Most importantly, remember that every time you use a credit card to make a purchase you are only delaying the payment. Paying for Christmas presents in January or February can leave a sour taste when you have seen the post Christmas sale catalogues!

Don't forget to review your budget on a regular basis to make sure you’re staying on track. After a month or two your circumstances may have changed, so review it in more detail and adjust if necessary. Shopping is a whole lot more fun when you know you can afford it.

If you would like more detailed help with managing your cash, give me a call. I would love to hear your thoughts, any tips you find help you or to read about how you cope over Christmas so please leave a comment below.

Jarred Briotti

*Image by Plinkk via Flickr

Marketers spend a lot of time, energy and money promoting “cheap is best”. There is huge competition for your car loan, credit card, term deposit, superannuation and mortgage dollars ... providers taking your money in fees and interest.We see it on TV, web, radio and daily papers tempting us as they know we are all looking to save a buck or two (how far do we drive to fill up the car and the purchase of yearly voucher books?). 

Maybe we can live with the small item purchases for a year or two before replacing them. But what about financial decisions that affect your whole life?. What cost will you really pay for your mortgage, credit card, personal loan, super, insurance and poor cash flow management over the mid/long term? Imagine if you could package savings from each of these areas and put these dollars into your savings instead. This is the start to better wealth creation and new, better lifestyle opportunities.

How many days per week do you currently work for the ATO, your bank, credit/car loan company and super fund? Do any of these providers really have your best interests in mind? How many ideas have they given you to help reduce these major long term expenses? How much of a difference would it make if you could take some of those days back and contribute towards your wealth?

Cash management is a basic ingredient to wealth creation and making a better lifestyle for you and your family. The results that can be achieved, especially over longer time frames, has the ability to change peoples’ lives and open up tremendous opportunities.

One side of the coin is cost, which we need to be mindful of but what is the cost of not knowing a better way? This is definitely not the time for “everything will be alright”. What will it cost for not getting where you want to go?

They say that with knowledge comes power. In this case, the power to put your cash to work for you. Reducing the cost of debt, building a nest egg, maybe saving tax by being aware of what to pay first.

The other side of the coin is Value, measured in dollars saved, creating more wealth, achieving financial objectives, piece of mind and financial guidance in good and rough times. Lets really “compare the pair” for when you see both sides of the coin you can make an educated decision on which plan you want, one based on cost or one based on value.

Need help?  Give us a call and let’s see how we can get your time, energy and money working for your wealth creation, we might even get some of those days back!

Darren Smith

*image by martinhoward via Flikr

 

Like most things worth having, it takes time, effort and discipline. When it comes to money, this definitely rings true.

One of the vital steps to financial planning is to understand how you spend your income (Cashflow Monitoring). The next part of this is to ensure you live within your means (Budget).

 

The first part is the cashflow monitoring; this is where you start tracking your expenses, and you may get a bit of a shock. But knowing where your money goes is the first step for taking control of your finances.  From this historical account of your spending, you can then build a budget, this will essentially give you self imposed targets of how much you should spend and where.

I saw a quote that says "A budget is just a method of worrying before you spend money, as well as afterward."  Initially, it does seem like this, but by planning your expenses based on your own spending patterns and building in personal reserves, it will actually free you of these worries.

Your surplus monies can then be used more effectively to ensure it can be linked back to meet your goals and starts revolving around your priorities. There are many ways to track your spending. Keeping a record of every transaction you make over a period of time allows you to clearly see your spending habits. This can be very time consuming and I find if you do this, people either give up as too hard or quickly find a better way for their own circumstance.

There are also many online options available, from sophisticated software to simple budgeting spreadsheets. I find that, simple is best, when tracking your expenses and it should take you no more than 5 minutes a month (It will take a lot longer than this at the beginning). Once you understand your cash flow, you can identify where you can make changes to live within your means and build your wealth.

Remember, your budget should be flexible enough and able to adapt to changes in your situation. Review it regularly, at least once a month, and consider your spending patterns over a number of months and make adjustments as you go.  Make sure also that your budget is realistic: it should reflect what you're actually spending not what you think you should be spending.

Using an adviser helps, as we can continue to offer advice and guidance as your situation changes or you reach your goals and move to the next.

John Elders

Flowing on from last week’s post, I thought I might keep with the family theme and talk about an issue facing all those who have children or grand children.

Recently I was chatting with my mum when she told me that a grandchild of her friend has been diagnosed with blood cancer. My mum was very upset, the young boy is very bright, he loves school and sports and playing with his friends just like every other nine year old boy. He is happy and carefree and didn’t understand much when his local GP explained that he was very sick and he wouldn’t be able to spend much time outdoors anymore. He didn’t understand when his mum said they couldn’t go to the movies on the weekend because she had to work, changing her hours around to be able to look after him on weekdays and work when her husband was home on the weekend.

My mum explained that they are preparing themselves for the enormity of the emotions they will feel when their little boy is battling the disease and all the pain. They are preparing themselves, cutting back on basic day to day necessities to pay for hospital bills and the cost of not being able to work. The affects are endless, on their other children and their lives, they never prepared themselves for this and always thought it wouldn’t happen to them.

This attitude of “it won’t happen to me’ is all too common amongst us all, but the statistics are staggering. On average 900 children are diagnosed with cancer in Australia each year, that is one child (0-18yrs) every 9 hours. There are approximately 15,000 children between the ages of 0-18yrs living with cancer in Australia today.

The good news is that 7 out of 10 children diagnosed with cancer survive.  The challenge is that the majority of these children will have one or more chronic health problems as a direct result of their treatment. Many may also suffer social and developmental challenges from having to deal with these experiences and being so young*.

On average, Australian statistics show that 1/3 of Australian couples who have a child with cancer will divorce, making the situation even more challenging with a single parent dealing with the medical, financial and travel burden of health treatment.  37% of families borrow money due to the financial effects of having a child with cancer. There is constant pressure on the family budget, in many cases a simple weekend away with the family to alleviate the stress of cancer would be unaffordable*.

Our children's lives should be filled with happiness, good health and a bright future but sadly many suffer debilitating sicknesses that greatly impact their lives and the lives of their families. There may be a solution available, not to cure the disease but to lessen the pain, to keep your standard of living and minimise the financial stress you and your family may suffer, especially if you have to stop working to look after your child.

Insurance isn’t just for your house and car. There are options which can provide you with financial peace of mind against death, terminal illness and other specified events. Insurance can also provide a lump-sum benefit, so parents and family members can focus all of their attention on helping their child recover. Cover may also be converted between the ages of 16 and 21 to a new life or trauma insurance plan without the need to provide any health evidence, becoming a gift for life.

Parents bring their children into the world wanting only the best for them, you work hard to provide and care for them, and you would drop everything in a heartbeat to help your child. A little planning and preparation now will give you confidence in knowing that although you may never be emotionally ready for the challenges a trauma event to your child, you are financially ready to drop it all and give your child your full support.

Financial Planning is about building and protecting your lifestyle through the good times and the bad. At every step of your life there are key issues that need to be addressed. Having children, changing jobs, buying a house or facing retirement are all life events that deserve careful planning. So seek advice to make sure you are well covered and on the right track.

Husna Jamal

*  Camp Quality Australia website http://www.campquality.org.au

**Image by TheodoreWLee via Flikr
 

I had the privilege to see Peter Tucker awarded the State Adviser of the Year last Thursday night for our licensee group. It wasn’t a big affair, two awards to two very deserving winners. But it made me think about what the awards mean for the recipient, the clients, and for the company itself. I think it is a story worth sharing as it goes to the heart of being in a service profession.



Peter Tucker, Stephen Redbond and Craig Todd, my fellow directors here at Sage, have each won one of the two awards over the last few years. In Peter’s case, he has now been the State Adviser of the Year twice – a rare feat. Obviously there is a theme and a reason for these wins. It isn’t a random piece of luck, but a commitment to being the best and doing your best at all times.

To be the State Adviser of the Year you must be nominated by your peers and satisfy a variety of criteria before making it to the judging panel. The finalists must all show outstanding abilities as a financial planner, demonstrating care and duty to all clients of the highest calibre. They must be compliant with the rules governing the profession and run exemplary business. Their ethics and behaviour are scrutinised to ensure a track record of honesty and transparency. Most importantly, they must have community involvement and spirit.
Peter’s nomination clearly showed how he met all the criteria and excelled in all areas. The judges agreed that Peter was indeed a worthy candidate providing a consistent performance through the years.

Along with all this Peter is humble about his achievements, focused on the next improvement, focused on his clients well being, passionate about his family and business and always generous with his time and knowledge to help and support others. Peter leads his life with a few simple rules – whatever you are doing try to have fun, whatever you are doing do it to the best of your abilities and don’t accept second best as good enough.

At the core of Peter’s success has been his caring attitude. This is on display in three distinct areas of his life and the relationships he builds, with clients, business colleagues and family and friends.

Peter cares deeply for his clients. He cares for more than just financial outcomes, working to achieve lifestyle aspirations and peace of mind. The psychology of investing can be tortuous and the strategies to achieve good outcomes with adequate protection mystifying. Peter takes the time to explain and educate about the “why” aspect of these important decisions. Never dogmatic,  just working through a tried and tested structure to get the best options for each situation.

At work Peter is a steady example to all. He is an active mentor for other advisers and everyone coming through the organisation. His passion for financial planning and Sage Financial Group is visible and real. Peter championed the term ‘quality advice’ many years before it became a commonly used term. Having worked in the profession for over 35 years he has plenty of experience to draw on and share. He remains an inspiration to all who work with him.

Less visible to most is Peter’s work behind the scenes with the licensee, associations and peer networks to create a vision for the future and lift the overall standards and outcomes of advice. His contribution has been both generous and infectious.

Similarly, in his private life Peter, and his family, have made a significant contribution to helping others. Being involved with Princess Margaret Hospital and creating support groups to assist families facing uncertainty and great difficulty.  He continues to be actively involved in community projects and is highly regarded for his work.

Last Thursday Peter’s humble nature and desire to avoid to the limelight came undone when he was named the State Adviser of the Year. I was proud to be part of the audience to see his efforts rewarded. It is clear to me that Peter would be top of his game without awards, without fanfare because of his commitment to quality in everything he does. My congratulations to Peter, a deserving winner and an example to all service professionals.

Trevor